


i'm alright (i was really in a state tonight)

by somethingdifferent



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dubious Consent, F/M, Mild Angst, Mildly Dubious Consent, Rough Sex, and current jannah/finn, background rey/ben, help this caught feelings!!, i wrote a romantic comedy except it is from the perspective of the side characters bc i FELT LIKE IT, mildly rough sex though lol, past finn/rose, that's it that's the plot!!, the anti romcom romcom i always wanted to write, the dubious consent is the fact that they're both drunk, they go to a wedding and get drunk and fuck, title and all line break titles taken from deadlines (hostile) by car seat headrest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: He’s a good drinking buddy. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so shocked by that, but she is. If Rose had to imagine what Hux was like outside of his job destroying people’s livelihoods and happiness, she probably would have guessed that he spends every waking moment of his free time reading, like...Machiavelli, or Sun Tzu, maybe some Ayn Rand if he is feeling particularly jaunty. And then maybe in the evening-time he plugs himself in to charge up and greets the day with a nice bottle of soylent. The usual American Psycho shit.Instead, she is deeply annoyed to learn that Hux is, inexplicably and against all odds, a person.So maybe going to a wedding fresh off a break-up was a bad decision. Rose decides to make a bunch more for good measure.[rose/hux; modern au]
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 64
Kudos: 349





	i'm alright (i was really in a state tonight)

**Author's Note:**

> [ Am I, am I, am I, am I on your mind? Is it, is it, is it, is it what you like? ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbIHaPEgMHI)

8 p.m.

can’t get connected; can't stay connected

  
So Rey is living a romantic comedy, and Rose is just totally, like, super-duper happy for her. Thrilled, even. Fucking _ecstatic_.

Rose knows this because Rey is currently enacting, without a hint of irony, the idiotic romantic comedy trope of fake dating with her workplace enemy-crush, the same guy she’s been complaining about for literal months leading up to this. Rose has...scarcely even the slightest idea of why Rey is pretending to be Kylo’s girlfriend (or Ben’s, Rose guesses, since Rey has recently been calling him Ben for the most part). It has something to do with his mother, Rey said, in this extremely vague manner that betrayed her obvious excitement about the fact.

“He just needs a date for this wedding,” Rey told her, perfectly serious. “He asked me to pretend to be his girlfriend to get his mom off his back. So she wouldn’t, like, set him up with some girl from shul.”

Rose just asked, “And you know he’s doing this because he wants to ask you out for real, right?”

And Rey pretended like she didn’t know what Rose was talking about and denied everything. Just like the lead in a romantic comedy.

This, of course, is to say nothing of the fact that they, apparently, are going to have to stay in the same hotel room together, due to some mix-up with the rooms because of the size of the wedding. Rose offered to put Rey up in her room, and was profoundly unsurprised when Rey refused using the thinnest of Katherine Heigl-esque excuses: _oh, I’d hate to put you out like that._

So Rey is living, at this very moment, not one, but _two_ distinct romantic comedy tropes. Rose can see them now, Rey and Kylo (or, she guesses, Ben), slow dancing in the middle of the crowd. Any minute now, he’s going to twirl her, and Rey is going to gaze up at him from under her eyelashes and they’ll both be so astonished to realize that they love each other, and they’ll go back to the hotel room and have sex and in the morning there will be some miscommunication, and then Rose will have to be Rey’s shoulder to cry on for _hmm..._ two weeks, Rose is guessing, based on their current trend of miscommunication occurrences. And then Ben will make some grand romantic gesture and they will confess their love and start dating and get engaged in ten months.

Rose sees it all now, standing by the bar at the wedding of Leia’s second-in-command D’Acy and...her new wife, Rose doesn’t know the other woman’s name. It’s going to happen for Rey, just like that. Just like the movies.

And Rose will be so fucking _supportive_.

She swipes her tongue across the salt lining the back of her hand, squeezes her eyes shut and throws back the second shot of tequila the bartender so graciously reminded her was the hard limit, and grapples blindly for the lime she set at the edge of her plate.

Rose reaches and feels absolutely nothing there. Opens her eyes: still nothing. No plate, no lime.

Just the corpse of a cigarette in the crystal ashtray set out for the rare people who would be so shitty as to smoke at an outdoor wedding reception.

“Fuck,” she hisses. Her mouth tastes like pure poison. She tilts over the bar top, tapping her hand irritably on the wood. “I need another damn lime,” she calls in a sing-song. “I can’t be alone with these thoughts of mine, dear barkeep.”

“I’m fairly certain you’ve been cut off, Ms. Tico.”

Rose flinches. She turns around slowly, not wanting to see the man she knows is standing there. Her eyes travel up the length of a pale neck, up higher than she really wants to because of how damn tall he is—there has got to be some kind of _you must be this height or greater to ruin lives_ sign outside First Order Industries, if only based on Kylo/Ben and Phasma and _him—_ to meet a hardened blue stare.

“Hux.” She plasters on a tight, mean smile. “The iceman cometh, it seems.”

He nods in acknowledgement, the edge of a smirk tipping the corner of his mouth mockingly. “Ms. Tico. You are looking—” He pauses, his eyes dipping down the length of her body, taking in her floral dress, a lower-than-usual neckline, the hem skimming her bare knees. She looks pretty good, she thinks, and he must know it, too, based on his frown. She can practically see the little cogs in his brain churning to come up with something appropriately cruel. “Better than usual.”

Oh. Okay. Not so bad as it has been—

“Did you lose some weight?”

And there it is. “No, Hugs,” she says, not letting her smile slip. “Did you ever figure out how to get out that stick Snoke has shoved up your ass? I know you love being controlled like a little puppet, but I was thinking it might be nice for you to be a real boy one of these days.”

His expression falters first. Rose calls it a huge fucking win. “Not as of yet," he finally grits out, then straightens up, looking down his nose at her. "How are the layoffs treating Resistance? Have we finally jettisoned your silly little division?”

Rose feels her hand curl into a fist, and reminds herself sternly that throwing hands at a coworker's wedding is something that could probably get her fired, and there doesn't need to be another Tico sister out of work. Paige would be so...disappointed in her. “Unfortunately for you," she grinds out through her teeth, "they have _not_ gotten rid of human resources.”

He shrugs, lifting a cigarette to his thin lips with one hand while the other works a silver lighter. There are his initials engraved on the side in flowery script: _AH_. “Merger’s not entirely finished,” he says coolly. “There’s still time for that yet.”

He grins, shark-like, and inhales deeply, letting out a small cloud of smoke that makes Rose cough.

“Put that out, man,” the bartender says, pointing toward the fairy light covered exit of the reception area. “Or go smoke that shit somewhere else. I have asthma.”

“There shouldn’t be an ashtray here if you don’t want people to smoke,” Hux says snidely.

Rose plucks the cigarette from his hands, stamping it out herself in the ashtray. “Sorry about that,” she says to the bartender.

“I fucking hand-rolled that,” Hux says, looming over her threateningly.

Rose rolls her eyes. “Be a prick to me all you want, but don’t take it out on the staff. You’re not the one paying them.”

Hux bristles, clearly ready to argue the point further, but luckily for the bartender, he has already walked away to help out different, less difficult guests.

He turns his attention to Rose instead. Oh, _joy_. “That was my property,” he snarls, shifting his rage to her.

“Please, Hugs.” She rolls her eyes, folding her arms over her chest while a vein in Hux's forehead throbs dangerously. “Can you take one night off from being a huge, gaping asshole? Is that too much to ask?”

He rolls his eyes in turn, but at least he doesn't reach for another cigarette. Probably saving his hand-rolled ones from her wrath. What an absolute _douche_. “And yet here you are, talking to me. Really makes you wonder, doesn't it?”

“It doesn't,” she deadpans, “but go ahead and think that if it makes you feel better about yourself.”

He leans back on the bar, but it's too forced to be nonchalant. A man like Hux seems utterly incapable of being laid-back—even affecting it as he is now, he seems less like a man relaxing and more like an ice sculpture tilted precariously against a block of wood. “I saw your _boyfriend_ earlier,” he sneers, lifting his eyes heavenward when he spits out the word boyfriend like it's spelled with four letters. “You know he's cheating on you, right?” He smirks, his eyes drifting over her again. Rose curls further into her crossed arms, feeling slightly less confident upon his second once-over. This time, he seems to actually look at her, his gaze lingering on her tits, on the curve of her waist. “With such a hot little thing, too,” he goes on faux-casual. “Quite the upgrade.”

Rose drops her eyes, choosing to watch the condensation trickle slowly down the side of her now empty shot glass. “We broke up,” she mutters lowly. “That's his new girlfriend.”

If there was a part of her, however small, that thought maybe this information would make Hux feel bad, would make him regret being such a dick to her, that part was sorely mistaken.

If anything, he seems positively _thrilled_. “So he did upgrade.” He whistles low, glancing deliberately to the dance floor where Finn and Jannah are dancing together, both of them laughing and smiling and just having the best fucking time. “Can't say I blame him,” he continues, smiling wider when Rose looks back at him. His eyes dart to her chest, and he shrugs again. “Considering.”

She can feel her vision blurring, blood rushing to her cheeks, and she's _not_ going to cry, not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he got to her—

Rose hauls herself over the bar, grabbing a fifth of vodka before the bartender can return from the other side of the bar and notice the theft, pours a healthy amount into a shot glass, and tosses it in Hux's smug face.

“Fuck you,” she hisses, and then books it away from the crowd, the bottle still in hand, before he can so much as blink.

8:30 p.m.

i swear i'm not always falling to bits

The female leads in a romantic comedy are always fairly typical. Cut from the same thin, gorgeous cloth. They are tall, and vibrant, and effortlessly talented. If their lives have been sad, it's in such a way that it only makes them more lovable to the male love interest. They are clumsy, but not unattractively so; argumentative, but not unreasonable. They might have a moment of weakness, but the love interest always accepts them for it; it makes their relationship stronger. The female lead looks like Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Aniston, Rachel McAdams, Meg Ryan; if she's Asian, it's only because the movie is _Crazy Rich Asians_ , and she looks like Constance Wu—thin but curvy and strong but feminine.

The best friend character has no purpose, other than to be a somewhat pleasant-looking sounding board for the lead. The best friend character can look like anybody. She doesn't have a life. She doesn't get the fake dating or the only one bed or the kiss under the mistletoe. The best friend might get a love interest, but it is only if it's convenient to the plot. The love interest of the best friend is probably the male love interest's less attractive, slightly more immature buddy from college or work.

The best friend also, apparently, gets this: fleeing a wedding reception half-drunk, with a stolen bottle of vodka, and hiding out in the bushes alone so the female lead doesn't come out to look for her and get even more advice about if the male love interest could just maybe, just possibly be interested in her (to be said with huge, uncertain eyes, as if Rey has no fucking clue how utterly insanely gorgeous she is, as if she is entirely unaware of how men fall at her feet; the female lead never knows how beautiful she is until the male love interest tells her so under the damn moonlight).

Rose is sick and tired of being the best friend. She just wants to drink her stolen vodka in peace.

Hux, of course, has to ruin that, too.

He walks past her three steps before he realizes she’s there, crouching in the bushes and bringing the bottle to her lips by the neck.

Hux freezes, spins on his heel, and walks back to stand in front of her, towering over her even more with the way she’s curled up on the ground.

“I’m sending you the bill for my dry-cleaning,” he says, snarky and cold.

Rose blames the vodka for what she does next.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she bursts out, her voice cracking in half in the middle of the last word.

Whatever he expected her to say, it clearly wasn’t that.

He chokes out one word, “What?” before she’s getting to her feet, barely hanging onto the wall to keep herself from toppling over.

“Do you think Rey is prettier than me?” she asks bluntly, glad when the question comes out more evenly than before.

Hux just looks at her for a long moment. Rose tilts her chin up, unwilling to be at all intimidated by an empty suit of a man, particularly one that looks like a drowned rat, his normally perfectly coiffed hair in slight disarray, his jacket smelling like pure alcohol.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “Rey is prettier than you.”

It should hurt. She knows this. But—it doesn’t.

She snorts. “Thanks for not sugarcoating it, dick.”

He bows mockingly. “Glad to be of service.”

“That’s why he dumped me, you know,” she says abruptly. Hux freezes halfway through turning away from her. A lock of red hair falls onto his brow, and Rose wants to cut it off. “He told me it was because he wasn’t ready for a relationship, but I knew. He always had a thing for Rey. He couldn’t get the fuck over himself. So fucking _pathetic—_ ” She imitates him, the stupid way he'd call her name when he saw her: “Rey, Rey, Rey! And then Kylo-Ben-whatever-the-fuck, came into the picture, and I guess he finally realized it wasn’t gonna happen. And then I guess he realized there was no point in having me waiting around on the back-burner anymore.”

Rose has no clue why she’s still talking to him about this. She’s never wanted to interact with him, not ever, not since Paige called her in tears, saying how her entire floor was let go, repeating over and over, _some guy named Hux, some guy named Ren, said we were nonessential, said they could replace us all with their people in a week, Rose, what if I default on my student loans—_

Rose swipes a hand under her eyes, the bottle of vodka swinging dangerously between her fingers. “He told me he didn’t want a girlfriend,” she says lowly. “He got a new and better one in less than a month.”

Hux is quiet for a moment. Just considering her. Rose realizes with a terrible lurch that when he doesn’t look pinched and peeved, like someone just took the last donut from the break room, Hux is kind of...annoyingly attractive.

Oh, god, she’s way drunker than she thought.

“You’re right,” he says finally, turning back to face her head-on. “Your ex-boyfriend is pathetic.”

“I can say that,” she snaps. “You can’t.”

“Fine.” Hux raises his hands in surrender, looking away from her, and Rose hears herself going on, trying to keep him from leaving.

“I feel like something to be shunted,” she says, babbling on like Hux gives a shit about what she has to say. “You know? Like I spend all this time listening to other people and helping them with their problems, and when they’re finished me with me—yeah.” The best friend, so sweet and nonthreatening and endlessly supportive. “Shunted.”

“Ms. Tico,” he says stiffly. “I truly cannot divine the reason why you would be telling me any of this. I don’t know anything about your problems, nor do I care to.”

“That’s why I’m telling you.” Rose takes another long pull from her bottle, hissing at the horrible taste. “I don’t need any more _sympathy_. I don’t want any more pep talks.” She doesn’t need it, she doesn’t tell him, doesn’t need her hot as fuck friend or her beautiful sister to tell her how fucking great she is. It’s easy for them to say. “At least you’re incapable of lying, even to spare my feelings.”

“That’s not true,” he dismisses immediately. “I lie all the time. I just don’t think you’re worth the effort.”

Rose snorts, giggling until her stomach hurts. “Amen to that, you ginger fuck.”

He seems utterly confused by her amusement. There is something super hot about it, the way his brow furrows and his mouth turns down and his shoulders hunch forward slightly. With his newly disheveled hair and wrinkled suit and uncertain gaze, he looks strangely like—

Like a _real boy_.

She knows for a fact it’s the vodka talking when she holds out the bottle between them, shaking it until Hux grabs it by the neck and takes the smallest sip possible.

“Let’s get fucking plastered,” she says loudly.

9 p.m.

i feel it; you'll feel it

  
Hux was on his way to his hotel room to get changed when she attacked him from the bushes with a bottle of vodka and a sob story, or so he tells her. Rose makes him go back to the reception with her, wet clothes and all, hiding the stolen vodka inside his Armani suit-jacket. She makes him play catch-up with her at one of the tables in the back of the venue until she feels he’s been sufficiently plied with liquor.

“Ren’s suit is a disgrace,” he tells her. The only indication that he’s even a little bit drunk is the way his accent is slipping, sounding less and less like _Brideshead Revisited_ with every successive sip. “Louis Vuitton. Nouveau-riche _bullshit_. I still can’t believe he got promoted over me.”

“It’s insane,” Rose agrees mildly. “You’re so much eviler than he is.”

“Thank you.” Hux takes another discreet swig and makes a pinched expression. “Jesus Christ, this vodka is disgusting.”

“Oh, wow, are you shocked Taaka isn’t top-shelf shit?”

“I’m disappointed you didn’t at least spring for Grey Goose,” he replies, but the haughtiness is lost in the way he continues to drink straight out of the bottle. He eyes Kylo Ben on the dance floor—judging his cuff links now, Rose is sure—but the other man appears to be leaving the reception, tugging Rey along with him.

“Fucking rom-com bullshit,” she mutters darkly. “Give me that.” Rose grabs the fifth from Hux while the lip of the bottle is still tipped over his mouth. He spills some down the front of his shirt and glares at her spitefully.

“Forget the dry-cleaning,” he says sternly. “You are paying for an entirely new suit.”

“I’m telling you now, I don’t make enough money for that to be a viable threat. You are just going to bitch and moan and I am just going to ignore you and you will never get paid back.”

Hux raises his eyes to the ceiling, the line of his throat working as he swallows. “I can’t fucking wait for the day we can finally get rid of all of you Resistance bleeding hearts.”

“You started off strong,” Rose says bitterly, her tongue loosened by alcohol, her head fried from jealously and rage. “Three floors in our building in one day? Bravo.”

He only sneers. “They shouldn’t have been threatening to unionize. It’s their own fault.”

“Paige wasn’t part of that,” Rose snaps, and then instantly regrets it: giving him the ammunition.

The smile on his face is cruel, icy eyes glittering and empty. “That’s right. That was her name. Your sister.” He reaches across Rose’s body for the fifth, but she shoves his shoulder back with the heel of her palm, feeling dizzy, nauseous. Hux sits back in his chair, his posture loose and uncaring, looking absolutely nothing like the wolf of an executive he is. There’s orange stubble covering the sharp line of his jaw, and the gel he must use to keep his hair from flopping all over his forehead has clearly been voided by all the alcohol she dumped into it. Rose clenches her jaw until it aches and meets his gaze.

“She’s the beautiful one, isn’t she,” he mutters quietly. “All she needs to do is bat those pretty eyes and she can get whatever she wants. I bet that’s how she got the job in the first place, right?”

Rose hisses, “Shut the fuck up, Hux.”

“I’m not going to apologize for firing her,” he says, callously dismissive. “I did what needed to be done. That team wasn’t pulling their weight.”

“She missed three payments on her loans,” Rose grits out, all proper etiquette abandoned as she leans into his space. “She had to take the first job she could get, and now she lives in fucking _Alabama_ , and I never get to see her.”

“Cry me a river. Lots of people lose their jobs. Lots of people move for work.”

She shakes her head firmly, a wave of self-righteous rage flooding through her system. “Not us. She didn’t want to leave.”

He scoffs. “Plans change.”

“With our parents gone—” Her voice is too loud, too passionate, and she knows he doesn’t care, knows it won’t make him feel any kind of remorse for all the people he's fucked over, but Rose has always had a knack for putting in too much effort with people who don’t give a shit about her. “We—we _promised_ each other we’d stay together.”

“It’s not my fault your parents got deported,” Hux says snidely, casually cruel, and Rose barely even registers the way her hand shoots out to strike him across the face.

Hux reels away, letting out a strangled noise at the slap. When he turns back to her, his eyes filled with cold rage, Rose can’t even bring herself to apologize. She’s still livid, shaking with barely contained fury.

“They didn’t get deported,” she says flatly, each syllable a blunt instrument. “They died.”

For once, Hux has nothing to say. True to form, he doesn’t apologize or express any kind of sympathy beyond a slight widening of his eyes, his lips parting in mild shock.

Rose lowers her eyes, glaring at the half empty fifth of vodka, the only thing she has to show for the entire night. “Fuck this,” she mutters, and drops the bottle in his lap, glad when he flinches at the sudden weight falling on his legs. “Sayonara, asshole. I hope you asphyxiate yourself to fucking death when you masturbate to pay-per-view dominatrix porn tonight.”

She stands to leave, crossing through the dance floor in the center of all of the tables, just past a crowd of young women jockeying for a position. She can hear Hux following after her, calling out, “Ms. Tico, hold on just one moment.”

She whirls around to face him, and even standing two yards away she can see how genuinely off he looks. He doesn’t sound like an Evelyn Waugh character at all anymore. He sounds almost _human_.

“Go fuck yourself, Hux,” she growls, and her voice is almost lost in the sudden shout from the crowd of women.

And that’s when the bouquet of lavender hits her on top of the head.

Rose grabs for it instinctively, pulling the mess of flowers in front of her chest like a shield. Then, as she watches in horror-movie-esque slow-motion, the garter from D’Acy’s new wife (damn, Rose should really learn her name) hits Hux square in the chest and falls anticlimactically into his hand.

Rose rolls her eyes heavenward and groans, even as the bridesmaids descend upon them, “Oh, you have _got_ to be shitting me.”

9:30 p.m.

i never learned to dance—what the hell do i know?

She might as well be dancing with a statue. Hux is just _that_ rigid. He holds her an arm’s length away, his hands cupped in a tense grip on her waist, positioned right in the middle of the space between her hips and her breasts, carefully not touching either. Hux glares at nothing; he doesn’t look at her face, but instead at some point just above her head. He’s tall enough that he doesn’t even need to look up to do so—he can just stare straight ahead to avoid meeting her eyes.

The DJ plays the dulcet sounds of Roxy Music. From the middle of the floor, she can see Finn and Jannah dancing together near one of the tables. Rose hopes, stupidly, that Finn might look over at her—maybe even just to make an expression of sympathy or surprise. He knows how much she hates Hux, after all.

But Finn doesn’t so much as glance in her direction. He just dances and smiles at his pretty new girlfriend.

Rose steps on Hux’s foot once, on accident, while she’s distracted. He winces, and so she does it again on purpose. Then again, then one more time, until:

“Would you please _stop_ that, Ms. Tico?”

Rose frowns at him when he finally meets her eyes, her brow furrowing together in irritation. “Why, am I bothering you?”

“Yes,” he snaps. “You are a bothersome person.”

“Too bad,” she shoots back. Rose adjusts her grip on his shoulders, her elbows aching from how stiffly she is holding her arms straight out. “Can you bend down or something? My arms are killing me.”

To her extreme shock, he actually listens to her. He doesn’t bend down, but he does scoot in a little bit closer, letting her arms drape slightly more comfortably over his shoulders so that her elbows can bend the way that elbows are supposed to. His hands move to the small of her back to account for the change in position. He still doesn’t look at her.

“That wouldn’t be happening if you weren’t the approximate size of a gremlin,” he grumbles.

“It’s not my fault you’re the same length and width as a weeping willow.”

“When are we allowed to stop dancing?” he asks, apropos of nothing. “What is the minimum required time for social acceptability?”

“Probably until the end of the song,” she admits begrudgingly.

“Fuck,” he mutters, seeming entirely too much like a normal person for a moment. “This song lasts forever.”

Rose nods because he's right. ‘More Than This’ does last forever, especially when the song is spent dancing with an evil fuck of a company executive. “At least it’s not ‘Stairway to Heaven.’”

He seems to consider this for a moment. “I’ve never heard ‘Stairway to Heaven,’” he says finally, sounding almost like he considers this an accomplishment.

She snorts. “Okay, weirdo.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. The song is still playing, and loudly, and Rose distracts herself by listening to the lyrics, no longer actively trying to injure Hux with her less-than-coordinated footwork. With her hands now settled just beside his throat, she can feel him breathing. Thinks about his lungs moving, pulling in air. His heart, if it does exist at all, pumping blood to his extremities. He smells like a bar, and he looks downright _unkempt_. She thinks about all his human machinery, his organs working to keep him alive, his body working to keep him moving. He must have been a baby once. He must have a mother and father.

She never really thought of Hux as a person before, but now it’s all she _can_ think about.

So distracted as she is by her own strange drunken thought process, that she almost doesn’t hear him when he murmurs, “I’m sorry,” his voice nearly buried underneath the sound from the speakers.

Rose looks up from the loosened knot of his tie at his collar, where she’d been keeping her eyes fixed for most of their dance. She can feel how surprised she must look: her eyes wide and lips parted.

“For what?” she asks bluntly. She doesn’t think he’s ever apologized before. Certainly not to her, possibly never in his life.

He meets her gaze steadily. His imperial-sounding accent sloughed off entirely, the new tone of his voice difficult to place. He says simply, “I’m sorry your parents died.”

Rose stares at him. She registers, kind of, that they’ve all but stopped moving, both of them standing and swaying slightly in the middle of a wedding reception she doesn’t even want to be at. His red hair lit up by fairy lights twinkling on a vine-covered canopy above their heads, the wind shuffling through the tables, buffeting locks of her black hair.

“Where’d you put that vodka?” she says, abrupt and unprompted.

He seems slightly too proud when he replies, “I hid it in a potted plant.”

Rose slides her hands from his shoulders to tug at his arm, no longer concerned about finishing out the obligatory, somewhat sexist tradition. She pulls him behind her as she makes her way back over to where they were sitting before.

Hux stops walking somewhere on the way, holding still until she is also forced to stop, her hand tugging uselessly at the unmoving object of his body.

“What are we doing?” he asks, looking as confused as she feels.

“We’re getting plastered,” she says, as if the answer were obvious.

He just stares at her, his brow etching into deeper confusion. “ _Why_?”

“Because—”

Because she is going to get drunker and louder and more belligerent and not give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks. Because she wants to. Because she’s tired of being the best friend. Because she wants someone to drink with, and he’s here and also convenient. Because she wants to have something just for herself, even if it’s only a half empty bottle of vodka and an evil robot of a man. Because—

“Because _fuck it,_ ” she says brightly.

Because fuck it all.

When they pass by Finn and Jannah on their way to the stolen alcohol, Rose doesn’t even remember to check if Finn looks at her as she passes.

10 p.m.

if you can’t get what you’re after any other way

He’s a good drinking buddy. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so shocked by that, but she is. If Rose had to imagine what Hux was like outside of his job destroying people’s livelihoods and happiness, she probably would have guessed that he spends every waking moment of his free time reading, like...Machiavelli, or Sun Tzu, maybe some Ayn Rand if he is feeling particularly jaunty. And then maybe in the evening-time he plugs himself in to charge up and greets the day with a nice bottle of soylent. The usual _American Psycho_ shit.

Instead, she is deeply annoyed to learn that Hux is, inexplicably and against all odds, a person.

For one thing, he’s clearly not from whatever place in England he wants everyone to think he’s from. His accent is a mess by the time they get the bottle of vodka, and it only gets worse from there as they pass it back and forth between them. Rose is American, and thus completely terrible at identifying countries of origin, so she can’t tell if what she’s hearing is a regional English dialect or Scottish or Irish or something else entirely. Either way, it is highly satisfying to know that Hux has been pretending to sound more high class than he really is.

And another: Hux isn’t stingy with the alcohol. He lets her take the bottle from him without fuss, and lifts it out of her hands only when he needs to. After a half hour, Rose has to pace herself once it becomes clear that the room has turned into a gently wavering ocean whenever her eyes shut. When she stops drinking altogether, finding she’s absolutely reached the upper threshold of her limit and doesn’t feel much like throwing up and making even more of a fool of herself in front of her ex and his new girlfriend, he doesn’t try to get her to drink more. He just holds the bottle in his pale hands and takes a swig every now and again.

And something else: he’s _stupidly_ hot. Rose realizes this somewhere between figuring out the accent thing and the third time she finds herself contemplating the line of his profile. Hux is needlessly attractive, which only serves to make him more unbearable. Rose absolutely hates it.

One last thing: Hux is a talker. He tells her every idiotic little thought that passes through his intoxicated brain. For starters, how he is furious with his boss for naming Kylo Ren as COO, particularly since Hux doesn’t trust that Ren isn’t plotting some kind of coupe within the company. He is enraged by the fact that he had to come to this wedding as a gesture of goodwill from First Order Industries to Resistance Media, especially since he knows that no one wants him here anyway. He is even more irritated when she tells him he is absolutely right on both counts.

It isn’t just his work though. Rose finds out with very little prompting that he has an opinion about just about everything. Every single thought is passionate in the extreme, and usually the exact opposite of her own personal views on the matter. He’s glad Daenerys Targaryen died at the end of _Game of Thrones_ , because she was a ruthless cold-hearted bitch who lit people on fire. He shops almost exclusively at Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus and thinks TJ Maxx is for poor people. He hates his father more than he loves him; Hux doesn't actually say this one out loud, but it's, like, super really obvious based on the way he talks about the guy. He, quote unquote, “doesn’t understand the appeal of cupcakes.” His favorite painter is Henri Matisse, his favorite author is George Saunders, and his favorite television show is—he tell her, without a trace of detectable irony— _Billions_.

Halfway through their conversation, when Rose is in the middle of yelling at him that no, it is definitely not cool or okay that billionaires exist in the world and hoard all of their wealth for themselves, and no, they did not earn their money all on their own when it comes only on the backs of the poor people whose labor they exploit, she realizes drinking at him and shouting with him is the most fun she’s had in weeks.

And god—what does that say about _her_?

11 p.m.

i was thinking people never change

It's the DJ's fault for actually acquiescing to her song request. Rose had to really twist the guy's arm—she was this close to pulling the orphan card—but then, ten minutes after she stumbles back to the table to continue arguing with Hux about whether or not affirmative action is necessary in this day and age (it's the closest Rose comes to punching him in the throat since they met, which is really saying something), The Jonas Brothers starts playing through the speakers.

Rose screeches in pure excitement, even as Hux groans audibly.

“It's happening,” she squeals. “Hugs, it's all coming to fruition.”

He rolls his eyes, and there isn't even a hint of a smile on his face when he tells her, “This is genuinely the worst thing I've ever had to bear witness to. Really.”

Then, for some unfathomable reason, she grabs his arm and drags him to the dance floor, where the crowd has thinned out some as the reception winds down.

And he, for an even more unfathomable reason, doesn't stop her.

He lets her lead him to the floor, and then he stands there while she dances in a way she knows for a fact she will be embarrassed by tomorrow. He doesn't talk her out of it, or dance with her. Rose shakes her hair around her head until it falls out of its style, and she throws her arms around her head so she doesn't have to see anybody or anything, and she pushes all thoughts of Finn out of her mind. Her drunken brain conjures up a single phrase, which is _Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami_ , and then adjusts it until it feels like the most wonderful thing in the world: _Rose and This Evil Android Take This Stupid Fucking Wedding_.

“Look at me now, Julia Roberts,” she exclaims to exactly no one, the words lost in the noise of a whole bunch of wedding invitees shouting along to ‘Burnin’ Up.’ “The best friend is making own fucking story-line!”

And, throughout all of it, Hux just—watches. Calmly. Quietly. His eyes all dark and intent.

12 a.m.

oh temptation, i could be a part of you

Eventually, the party breaks up, as wedding receptions are apt to do. More and more people start leaving, and the fifth of vodka is definitely down to its last dregs, and it's not like she's going to drink any more or dance any more but—

Rose isn't ready to be alone with her thoughts just yet. She can already feel herself sobering up, even if the hallway leading from the reception area to the lobby is still spinning around her like a carnival fun-house.

And that, she decides, is just flat-out unacceptable.

“I'm gonna go swimming, I think,” she announces. She's distantly aware that she's speaking way too loud for the confined space they're in, and more than one person walking ahead of her jumps at the sound of her voice.

Hux pauses, turning around from where he was walking a few paces in front of her.

“You are going to drown in the bottom of a hotel swimming pool,” he says seriously.

“Psh,” she counters. “Nuh-uh.”

Hux lets out a tremendous sigh, like she is a small child who just asked if she could get candy from the grocery store. Maybe the comparison doesn't quite pan, but eh. Fuck it.

“If you die at this wedding,” he says, “that will result in some very bad press for First Order.”

“Now you're just sweet-talking me.”

He eyes her cautiously. “It's nothing we couldn't fix,” he says slowly, “but it would still be less than ideal for you to drown.”

Rose looks at him. His tie is completely undone, looped around his neck, and he has the first three buttons on his shirt opened, revealing inches of a pale white skin. So very Anglo-Saxon. Not for the first time in her life—hell, not for the first time tonight—Rose wants something that's really, really bad for her.

“Come be my lifeguard then,” she tells him. “Because I'm definitely going.”

12:15 a.m.

am i, am i, am i, am i on your mind?

The outdoor pool is frigid when she dips her toes in at the shallow end, but Rose isn’t going to let a minor detail like that stop her. She wanted to go swimming, so she is going to go swimming. It’s all going to happen for her, she’s decided.

Hux sits on one of the folding chairs lined up neatly at the side of the pool. He refused to even consider the possibility of getting into the pool with her; instead, he contents himself to sit and wait to see if she does end up getting herself into literal physical danger.

“You are so going to regret not getting in on all this,” Rose calls to him from the top stair of the steps leading into the pool. The water laps at her calves, delightfully cool against her overheated skin. “Or does the water just interfere with your circuitry?”

“I know that considering your level of education I can’t expect a more thoughtful joke from you,” he drawls, “but I can’t say I’m not disappointed that you keep returning to the evil A.I. well. It just feels lazy at this point.”

“Fuck you, RoboCop,” she returns without venom.

Rose steps back out of the pool and crosses over to the chair. Hux stands up, apparently grateful that she’s given up on her mission to swim drunkenly at midnight, and then immediately takes a step back, knocking the chair behind him out of line, when she reaches around and tugs down the zipper on the back of her dress.

Rose fiddles with the zipper, tugging the sleeves of her dress off her shoulders before shimmying the whole thing down her body to fall in a crumpled pile on the asphalt.

Hux watches her, slack-jawed, as she kicks the dress away and stands in front of him in just her mismatched underwear, a plain nude bra and white cotton panties. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him totally speechless. It doesn’t feel particularly like a victory. She doesn’t feel like they’re playing a game that has a winner.

She just wants something for herself. Would do anything to have it.

His eyes are huge, blue swallowed into black. Rose meets his gaze, challenging, and lifts her chin up like a dare.

He’s still standing there, silent and unmoving, when she runs back to the pool and jumps in.

The sudden rush of cold is a horrible shock to her system. Rose lets out a noise that's lost in the water, but it's good, it feels good to be doing something stupid right now, so she stays in the water instead of scrambling back out, and she sinks further down into the deep end of the pool. Her eyes are screwed shut, her hands clenched into fists. She holds her breath until her lungs start to burn, and she's so cold, and she's not really swimming so much as she is sinking further and further into the water. The world around her feels wavy and distant, everything muffled in the waves overhead.

She barely even realizes she's crying until Hux pulls her up from the bottom of the pool.

He drags her away from the deeper end of it and closer to the middle, tall enough that he can stand there while she floats in front of him, his arms keeping her upright since her feet can't reach the bottom.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hisses. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

She shakes her head, her water-soaked hair whacking her in the face. She scrubs a hand across her forehead, pulling the wet strands out of the way of her eyes, and sees that Hux is still wearing his suit, sans his jacket and shoes.

“No,” she says, teeth chattering from the chill. “No, I'm—”

“You owe me a new suit,” he goes on, talking over her, “you owe me a new suit and hours of my time, I should—I should charge you for this, it has got to be billable, babysitting Resistance's HR brat, rescuing her from becoming a watery corpse at the bottom of a pool at a fucking _Marriott—_ you fucking _scared_ me, Rose, what the _fuck_ were you thinking?”

She gulps down air, drinks it up, and shakes her head again. Hux looms over her, his normally icy expression all fire, his hair utterly ruined, his suit utterly destroyed. Completely wrecked by her and standing, fully clothed, in a hotel pool after midnight to keep her from drowning.

Rose doesn't overthink it. She doesn't think about it at all, actually. She just does what she wants, for once.

Rose grabs Hux by the nape of his neck and surges forward to kiss the confusion off of his stupid handsome face.

He meets her instantly, his lips cold from the water, but his hands so warm as they grip her back, giving her some of that heat, pulling her close. His mouth opens up as she attacks it, and he's the one who deepens the kiss, puts his tongue against hers and rolls it, licks his way inside. Methodical and meticulous in the movement of his lips, his teeth biting and tongue searching, the way he is with everything else. He kisses her like he took a fucking seminar on it—Making Out As a Method of Business Communication: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying About Stocks and Love The Bomb (the bomb being tonsil hockey).

Rose pulls away with a gasp, pressing against his shoulders. He chases after her mouth for a second, his eyes heavy and half-lidded.

“We're in a pool,” she says, cursing how idiotically breathless she sounds.

He looks down as if just noticing that fact, his hands twitching against her bare back.

“Yes,” he says.

Rose stares at him, and he stares at her right back.

She sighs, rolling her eyes to the black, star-dotted sky above them. She can see the three stars that make up Orion's Belt somewhere to her right, the only constellation she could ever recognize. Hux's belt digs into her stomach, and she can feel what she thinks might be the beginning of a hard-on underneath it.

“So maybe we should go to your hotel room,” she says forcefully.

That, at least, gets him to move.

12:30 a.m.

is it, is it, is it, is it what you like?

The dress sticks to her wet skin, and Hux carries her heels as they pad through the lobby. It's mostly empty, thank god, with the exception of a few hotel employees that look at them quizzically for a moment before glancing away. Rose is sure they've seen worse and stranger before than two obviously intoxicated and dripping-wet wedding guests.

The ride up the elevator to the top floor is silent. They make a pool of water where they stand on the tile. The doors to the elevator are mirrors, and Rose just looks at herself, not meeting his eyes in the reflection.

Her hair is darker than dark, her dress see-through and clinging to her curves. Her bare feet feel cold on the floor, but the heat of Hux standing next to her is steadily reassuring. She doesn't really feel all that drunk anymore, but she knows she must be. He can't be much better off than her.

The elevator opens with a ding, and Hux lets her lead the way out of the elevator. Rose walks in front of him for a few feet, until she realizes that she has absolutely no idea where his hotel room is and lets him get in front of her.

He stops in front of his room, fiddling with the keycard in his hand. Which, okay. Is strange. Hux does not fiddle. He picks things up and he puts them down, things like folders full of market research, or stocks, or data points—Rose doesn't actually have even the faintest idea of what it is he does, just that it involves wearing suits and firing lots of people. Hux may stand in front of big groups and shout and do PowerPoint presentations on bottom lines and synergy or whatever, but he does not fiddle.

And yet, here he is. Standing, soaked to the bone, in front of Room 2204, holding a keycard and absolutely fiddling with it.

“Ms. Tico,” he says, his voice stiff, but no longer even attempting to sound haughty and uppercrust. “I feel it necessary to clarify a comment I made earlier.”

Rose raises an eyebrow, looking at him from under her lashes. He's quiet for a beat too long, and she interrupts his apparent overthinking. “What, Hux?”

“I said—” He clears his throat, seeming deeply uncomfortable. “You asked me a straightforward question and I gave you an answer that was intentionally misleading.”

“Spit it out, buddy.”

“You asked me if I _thought_ Rey was prettier than you. I said she is prettier than you, but—” He shifts on his feet, something he also doesn't do. “That doesn't mean I _think_ that.”

Rose scoffs. “Hugs, I'm already going to sleep with you. You don't have to butter me up anymore.”

He ignores that. His eyes lift and squeeze shut; he doesn't even pretend to look at her when he goes on, “And I purposefully never answered your first question. When you asked if I thought you were pretty.”

Rose feels strangely adrift. Like she's floating in the middle of an ocean. She can't tear her eyes away from him—the way he can't seem to look at her, the way he seems so incongruously ordinary. A real boy.

“I do,” he says quietly, opening his eyes at last and holding her gaze. “You are. Pretty.”

She can feel her expression changing, even as she watches him. The space around them feels different, fragile and breakable. Rose wants something, she wants—she wants him, in direct spite of her own best judgment. Rose and the real boy.

She tells him softly, “Open the door, Armitage.”

12:45 a.m.

oh temptation, i could take a piece from you

She isn't surprised when he arranges her with him on the bed so that she's on top. He lays back on the mattress, all unexpected muscle and ivory skin, and there's a wiry strength in the way he holds her above him, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. There's hardly any foreplay, and it's mostly in the form of his hand searching between her legs, knuckles circling her clit, fingers curling and rubbing inside, drawing sounds from her she doesn't intend to make.

She tries, once, to go down on him, but he doesn't let her. He rolls on a condom that he got from his wallet and he works his way inside her without a word. She's not that wet, at first, and he starts by just easing in and out, short, shallow thrusts to get her ready. She can feel herself getting wetter the longer it goes on, can practically feel it dripping out of her. She shifts herself on top of him, her hair falling into his face. He doesn't push it out of the way, the way Finn used to when they'd have sex—a sweet little gesture of care, Rose thought. Hux—Armitage just lets it fall into his eyes, the same eyes he keeps fixed on every single shift in her expression.

Rose lets out strangled gasp of surprise when the change in the angle has him suddenly bottoming out inside her, every inch of him sliding in hard and fast, to the hilt.

He throws his head back, groaning out a choked-off, “Fuck,” at the feeling. Rose can feel him throbbing inside her channel; his hands tighten even further into her skin. He pulls her closer to him, closer to his face like he might kiss her, but he just shifts her body up enough that he can bend forward and mouth at her tits. He sucks her nipples, a hint of teeth, and Rose _moans_ , her cunt fluttering around his cock, trying to keep him inside as much as possible even when he starts to move.

He doesn't make many sounds, doesn't talk dirty or groan or whimper the way some other guys she's slept with have. He just fucks up into her, careful and deep, measured strokes, like he's trying to pull something out of her with every thrust: a sound or a feeling or something else entirely that only he knows about. Even though she's the one sitting on his cock, even though she should be taking what she wants from him, it feels like just the opposite. Like it's _her_ body that's giving and giving and _giving_.

Rose lets him take, lets him inside, and lets the feeling of his cock hitting this spot deep inside her body wash gently over her like a rolling tide.

Then, on a dime, it changes. He pulls her hair suddenly, a fistful of black strands clenched tightly in his fist, and jerks her head back, her tits still pressed just over his open mouth. The snap of his hips against hers is almost violent, knocking the wind out of her every time he fucks up into her, deeper and deeper. “Come on, Rose,” he snarls, “you can do better than that.”

And it's like he's in her head; like he knows exactly what she wants. She digs her nails into his shoulder, harsh and cruel, until she can see it start to break skin. Armitage smiles, his eyes ablaze, as she starts to ride him, meeting his thrusts with her own until every sound falling from her lips is a whine. His breath speeds up, and then he's groaning, too, scratching his nails down her back until she squeals, her breath stopping in her chest.

Rose feels everything: blood roaring in her ears, every inch of his cock sliding through the slick center of her, the dull ache of the scratches he left on her shoulder blades. She wants—she just wants to feel it _all_.

She comes quickly, overwhelmed with sensation, the angle of him hitting her just right, her clit rubbing perfectly over his bare abdomen, his tongue flicking over her nipples. The orgasm rips through her in a way that feels almost like pain, and her body goes limp at the onslaught, but he doesn't stop, doesn't stop fucking into her, keeping a steady rhythm inside her body that draws out the aftershocks as she pulsates around him, a wreck of blood and skin and wanting where there used to be a girl.

She knows he can feel her coming on his cock, knows it because the second her body relaxes and drapes over him, he flips them around, his hands on her back holding her still as he moves her body down onto the mattress. He's still inside her, doesn't even have to pull out to shift angles before he's fucking her again, his hands spreading her thighs open wide enough that it twinges at her hip. Every punch of breath from his lungs is a snarl as he thrusts into her, impossibly deep. Rose opens herself up for him, wet and warm and welcoming, and when he speeds up, his strokes growing erratic and just a little too needy, she feels him stutter and shake as he comes deep inside her.

10 a.m.

i'm alright; put me up your sleeves sometime

He gets a wake-up call at 7 a.m. Hux actually gets up for it, in exactly the way that she wouldn't. He gets up from the bed, still naked, and goes to his bathroom to shower. Rose lays there, covered up by the soft, pillowy duvet, and falls back asleep for another few hours, until he shakes her awake with a hand on her shoulder.

“It's ten,” he says above her, brusque and efficient. “Check-out is noon. You need to go to your room and pack up, unless you want to pay for another day.”

Rose opens her eyes blearily, registering a return to form for him: neatly pressed suit (ridiculous, she thinks, considering the fact that it's a Sunday and he's just going to hop on a flight back home, same as everyone else), and hair gelled into firm submission. “I'm guessing you're not a fan of morning sex,” she says lightly, and he rolls his eyes.

“Just get up, Rose,” he tosses out, and returns to typing something on his phone.

She rolls out of the bed, searching blindly for her ruined clothes from the night before. She's just put on her bra and underwear—now dried, thank fuck—when Hux tosses something at her that hits her smack in the face.

The clothes fall into her hands, and she realizes, with a small jolt of surprise, that it's an undershirt and a pair of sweatpants.

“You'll have to roll those up,” he tells her, not looking up from his phone as she stands. “You're just a tiny little thing.”

“Thanks,” she mutters, somewhat confused. She rolls the legs of the pants up to her ankles, annoyed at how many times she has to do so to make them a manageable length. She knots the white undershirt in front of her stomach to make it slightly cuter, even if she'll just end up changing out of it in ten minutes.

He glances up, the barest hint of a smirk lighting on his face as he gives her a once-over. “You look good,” he says, as casual as if it's something he does all the time. She waits for the insult that's sure to follow, but it doesn't come. He just looks back at his phone and keeps tapping.

Rose doesn't thank him for that. It's just too weird.

She gathers up her dress, purse, and high heels, preferring to walk barefoot rather than try to clomp around in heels and too-long sweats. She goes to the door without saying goodbye, feeling some emotion tugging at the middle of her chest that is something between strange and pleased and sad and good, or maybe is all of them at once, but Hux stops her before she can open it.

“What's your phone number?”

Rose turns around slowly. She can feel the way her eyebrows knit together, the way her expression contorts in bewilderment. “I'm sorry, what?”

Hux looks up from his cell. “Your number,” he repeats, each syllable emphasized, as if her understanding the question were the problem.

“Um,” she says inelegantly. And then, for absolutely no reason, recites her number to him.

He enters it in his phone, she presumes, to save for later. And then he looks up at her one last time, his eyebrows raised. “I'll be in touch,” he says, like she is a business contact of his. Like he learned the phrase from a seminar: How To Avoid An Awkward Morning-After With A Business Associate: Or, When Is It Appropriate To Ask For a Phone Number After Copulation?

“Yeah, okay,” she says stupidly, and then she opens the door and leaves his hotel room.

Her reflection, when she gets in the elevator and stands beside a mother and son in bathing suits, both of them presumably on their way to the pool, looks at her accusingly.

12 p.m.

i don't think we broke the glass, but hell if i know

Rey won't look her in the eye when Rose meets her in the lobby. Kylo Ben is nowhere in sight. Rey looks like she got little to no sleep last night.

Rose rolls her suitcase closer to her friend and offers her a small smile as she sidles up beside Rey.

“You seem tired,” she says, and Rey nods distantly, grinning in a way that doesn't meet her eyes.

“Just—long night,” she says quietly.

Rose almost rolls her eyes. She fucking called it; fake dating and bed-sharing rears it's ugly head. Two weeks of miscommunication. Fucking romantic comedy third act angst bullshit.

“Well,” she says, ever the sweet and supportive best friend, “if you want to talk about it...”

Rey looks up at her, her hazel eyes wide and grateful. “Rose,” she says, her voice tremulous and soft. She bites her lip, eyes darting away dramatically, as she inhales deeply and breathes out, “I think I...I think I might have...feelings. For Ben.”

Rose nods and lays a hand on her friend's shoulder. In her back pocket, her phone buzzes once, and then again. “Oh, Rey,” she says sincerely, grinning gently, “no fucking shit.”

**Author's Note:**

> [ ooh! self-promotion! follow me on twitter! ](https://twitter.com/janedazey)


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